Shivers
by Moxie2
Summary: Gordo, and Lizzie talk about Miranda before and after she's gone away.
1. Light

Shivers

I: Light

I ran a hand through my hair, nursing the lump on my forehead with my palm. I pulled myself up from the floor with the nightstand I had hit my head on and eased myself into the bed feeling my damp forehead again. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to come back to the images in my head. I didn't remember falling off the bed, just the lump forming under my hand when I jerked my head away from the table with the lamp. I lay back against the bed and looked over at a fuzzy purple polka dotted camera with the imprinted lenses hanging from my lamp. "Only Miranda…" Never did figure out what to do with it. 

My head turned back up to the ceiling and I pictured the dream again. It was like watching a TV drama: a dark screen- there's always only darkness at first. Through an empty white light and I can see her kneeling down in the middle of an empty room. I don't think I move. I don't remember moving- just watching as she plays with a gardenia and its petals. She plucked at the petals until the flower was nothing but a tiny bulb of pollen on a thorny green stick. She held onto the stem, whispering into the bare light. She clutched the stem tighter and I watched it seethe thorns out of its green skin into her pale one. Buds of blood crashed into the light and onto her skin, rolling down the crevices of her fingers. She held the stem closer until the roots of the thorn couldn't be seen and all the time she just sat unmoving, pushing her hands into the thorns. 

When I finally did move it was to walk towards her and the thorns grew through her as I called her name. "Miranda!" The blood trickled to floor, spreading across her now bluish white skin. The puddle of blood spread to my feet. Miranda started to shake and the thorns grew enough to wrap themselves under her, digging into the untouched backs of her hands. I couldn't touch her. My hands didn't want to move. Then she stood and looked at me, face to face, the stem hanging from their deep places in the hearts of her hands. "Miranda…" Her thorny palms found my shoulders and I cried out as she dug them into me like they had done to her and I knew she could feel my warm blood flow over her hands and the vines in them. She pushed me back and I shut my eyes dreaming for a landing with her face looking down on me and finding my bed. 

It wasn't the first time I'd had the dream and it would just remind me of the times leading up to before she had left:

Oh the Digital Bean. It was another day of mathematical equations. Miranda was the first thing I saw when I entered. Shockingly enough there was no Lizzie but I watched her click the colored mouse. The tiny arrow hovered above the exit "x" as she glanced to the sides of her, watching the rest of the Digital Bean customers engaged in Internet ventures. Her eyes returned to the screen and went back to the result from her search. She mumbled the words on the monitor to herself and smiled as the ding of a new message flew into her ear. She finally let the mouse go and anxiously hit the keys. What was she doing looking so suspicious? 

I walked over to her. "Hey."

She yelped and left a trail of I's on the screen. Quickly she scrambled for the mouse and clicked the x before whipping around. "Hiya…Gordo." 

I sat down at the empty chair beside her after one of the suspected _spies_ had gotten up. "You…feeling alright?" 

"Yeah. Fine. Why?" 

"You're just acting kind of weird."

"Oh, you mean…" Something caught her eye. "Weirder than that?" 

She pointed out Kate and her entourage at a table, romancing Guido Pullman. 

"What are they doing with Guido Pullman?"

"Probably trying to get homework answers out of him." 

"Don't they know I'm available?" 

"Until they find out, I guess you'll have to settle for me and Lizzie, won't you?" She quipped, throwing her arm around her dejected friend. 

I cocked my head to the side, "You're lucky I stick around for you." 

Miranda snorted softly, and looked down at her feet: that was her only reply. I ignored the snort at first, barely noticed it, but I should've paid attention. I should've known. 

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	2. Subtraction, Division, and Miscalculatio...

II

Subtraction, Division, and Miscalculation

Ethan Craft: the apple of my eye- the object of my affections. The roadblock: Kate. Prissy, perky, blonde, "I'm a cheerleader, love me" Kate. I needed to vent, to throw my comments of unrequited love to the nearest body complete with operational ears. Unfortunately, the nearest pair of working ears happened to belong to Gordo.

My eye finds him sitting across from me, strumming his fingers against the table. He seemed more annoyed these days than during any other that I can remember. My eyes fondling Ethan and my seething hate of Kate were of no interest to him. I found that out after a public unveiling of Gordo blowing his top in the cafeteria. His goal: to make everyone aware of how my rambles bored and irritated him. "Empty-headed, self involved nonsense", he called them. I never forgot that and I don't think I ever will, but there was no escaping them. Spinoza and Kafka don't fit into my usual routine- they barely fit into my vocabulary. There was no Miranda to tell my empty rambles to and get a reply that held as much excitement and open understanding as I expected. There was no one to cheer me on and support my conceited love and convince me that Ethan was more than some _really_ hot face.  There was only Gordo. Gordo who strummed his fingers on the table watching the seconds drum by underneath the stubs of his nails. 

I always think of Miranda now when I look at Gordo, but not because of any similarities, just because of the sudden loss of "the third one". There was always three of us .In the playpen, in the nursery, through school and junior high- there always had been three and suddenly, not without warning, three tapered away and really, just became one. Gordo was just a shell that beat his fingers and retraced all the time he never had with Miranda. I spoke incessantly about Ethan Craft and Kate in my mind, trying to remember the essence of the conversations I had with her. We both missed her, but it's as if Gordo didn't feel there was a way of getting her back and the more he believed it, the more he struggled to remember her. So here we sat in silence just like every other day after three became one. 

I looked over at the down the block and saw the red and blue lights on the sidewalk reflecting off the police car. Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez stood on the porch watching as detectives walked along the short steps into the house for the millionth time. I hadn't been there since the first time it had happened, but I doubt anything's changed. Miranda's parents would sit on one side of the coffee table while the detectives stood on the other. The laptop Miranda had gotten for her birthday and learned quickly to operate, would sit in the middle of the table. The green light on the edge would flicker on as someone worked with it. They would search all the files, trying to gather last searches, last e-mails: any trace or clue. They never found a thing. She learned too quickly.

I walked through my front door. I peeked at Dad and Matt in the backyard, taking another stab at a cave. 

"Hey, Honey. How was your day?" She asked, looking over her notepad. 

"It was fine, Mom." I grabbed an apple off the kitchen table and went for the stairs. 

"Lizzie, did you hear anything?"

I looked back at her and shook my head. She nodded and clicked her tongue the way she always did when she was disappointed. 

I threw my book bag on the floor of my room and laid back with my feet on the edge of my bed. Then I remembered something about Miranda: the day she lost interest in Ethan Craft. 

I was twirling my pencil in math class, listening as Gordo was called to the board to show off his knowledge of sequential math. As usual and without shame I was looking at Ethan Craft tip his pencil on his finger like a seesaw. He was so cute, the way he paid particular attention to the center, making sure everything was balanced. His eyes squinted in that perfect way they did as he concentrated. I drew one eye away from Ethan to gush with Miranda at the intensity of his eyes when he just…stared.  To my complete surprise, it looked like she was actually paying attention to Gordo scribbling all over the board. She had her pencil in hand and made a duplicate of Gordo's writings to her notebook. 

"Miranda," I whispered, trying to get her attention. She obviously hadn't heard but reached over to Joseph Edgar who played "Drugiez" on his palm pilot.  The game really was nothing more than searching a fictional neighborhood, trying to find the cheapest drugs. Even Larry Tudgeman wasn't so accepting of Joseph Edgar. 

"Miranda what are you doing?" 

Somehow, she bribed Edgar to pry the palm pilot from her hand long enough to get into her own hand. She slid it under her desk and flipped to the end of her notebook. In her curvy handwriting was a letter, complete with "Dear". She punched in the first word and turned page after page, copying the letter into the machine. It was too far for me to read and I all I could catch was that one word in bold letters. After Gordo sat down and was applauded as usual, she passed the palm pilot back to Edgar. Gordo caught her and looked just as confused as I was. He leaned over just enough to whisper, "Miranda voluntarily within a five foot radius of Edgar?" I couldn't explain it.

"Must've been a pretty important e-mail." 

After math we asked simple questions that required simple answers, anything to clear up the Sanchez/Edgar Contact. She just ignored us and denied it. 

Gordo spoke slowly. "But we saw you!" 

"You said it yourself Gordo. The internet is addictive." 

"You gave up a conversation about Ethan Craft for Edgar's palm pilot, Miranda," I reminded her. 

"I don't live eat and breathe Ethan Craft, Lizzie." Excuse me? 

"Since when?" 

"Since now, okay? He's just not that important, and let's face it Lizzie, he's not the brightest crayon in the box." 

At the time I was shocked, ready to double over. Gordo actually looked pleased, until the attempts of conversation grew worthless and slim. 

Slowly, Miranda made little effort to talk to either of us. There were no more three-way conversations on the telephone as Gordo played hacky sack. Miranda grew quiet and irritable and the Bohemian theme of her wardrobe went drab until the loud, vibrant Miranda Sanchez became the unnoticed gray backdrop in a crowd. 

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Sorry if I made Lizzie a little ditzy and the Lizzie overreact at Miranda's sudden loss of love for Ethan. Didn't mean to…. I was trying to make a point.


	3. Sadist

III

Sadist

It makes me mad sometimes that Lizzie doesn't seem to understand the reality of what was going on. She really believes the Miranda would come back even though we haven't seen her in months and the detectives still haven't checked Edgar's palm pilot. She thinks I'm a pessimist because I know better.

Every day, every afternoon the detectives drop by and drink Mrs. Sanchez's coffee and eat her cooking and act like they care, but they don't do anything. They don't ever do anything, which accounts for why Miranda's not coming back. A month later I'm still not sure what's happened to her. Before she disappeared she told Lizzie about someone she'd met on the Internet. Now her computer sits in the center of the house being analyzed even though we all know there's nothing there. Edgar has the answer in his book bag but he hasn't said anything- because he hasn't been questioned. They let her disappear without a note- without a goodbye. I don't want her to come back. Sometimes I wish she never would, but it doesn't stop me from thinking about her. I still wanted to find her.  

Joseph Edgar walked away from the gym floor in his usual Thursday jeans, the palm pilot firmly secured in his belt as he walked into the locker room. The first day he hitched the palm pilot so close to him I wanted to kill him- to strangle him for his selfishness. Sure he kept it there out of fear of being some kind of an accomplice to the whole thing, but there was a pang of self-interest in there. He had the biggest crush on Miranda and it killed him that she didn't feel the same way. Now he was the most important part in our life, if not hers, and I think it's giving him a thrill. 

He got out of gym on the basis of asthma and allergies to rubber surfaces, meanwhile I was pelted with dodge balls. 

I needed that palm pilot. It wasn't the most difficult task in the world to take the hand held computer from someone as light and odd as Joseph Edgar, but I don't exactly have nerves of steel. I didn't take showers in the locker room and neither did Joseph… we had privacy issues. So the belt never came off, which meant the pilot stayed on. 

I pulled one shirt through the neck of another, changing without violating my insecurities. Joseph was watching me. I buttoned my pants over my shorts and turned to face him. "Why do you put that on your belt all the time? It was never there before."

He rubbed his palm up against his nose. "You know why." There was a small break in conversation.

"Did you read it?" 

"What?" His nose twitched and he rubbed his palm against it. 

"You know what." 

"No…well, not all of it. I couldn't." He focused the ends of his belt strap and threw them against his hands.

"Why?"

"It…" He rubbed his nose again and looked down at his belt. "It got too…graphic." 

"Graphic?" Joseph got up when he noticed the older jocks coming around the corner to their lockers. He pulled me to one side. What was in there that suddenly turned Joseph off from Miranda?

"Listen, if I tell you this, you can't turn on me. I didn't change anything." He rubbed his nose again and it twitched. "She wrote it and he wrote back okay? I didn't change anything!" He was getting frantic and his whispers were getting louder. 

I had to shake him a little to get him to be quiet. "Okay! Okay! I promise, I won't turn on you."

He leaned into me. "When she came to me- I couldn't believe it." He was quickly getting calm. "She wanted to borrow it that one time, but then she came to me again. I liked that she depended on me. I wanted her to. I would watch her sometime. They spoke a lot. He would always write to her first. Most of the time, twice a day and then they would talk in chats…she saved everything. Sometimes I pretended she was talking to me…but then it got weird, David. Kind of uncomfortable."

"Gordo." 

He rubbed his nose. "Gordo…. I don't want anyone to read it. I don't want anyone to think I changed it- I didn't touch it! She wrote it!" He paused, but only for a second. "I know why she's missing, Gordo." He was getting frantic, rubbing his nose without stopping. The whistle shrieked in our ears for us to get back onto the gym and leave. He fumbled with the loops and pockets of his belt. "Don't tell anyone I told you. Say you stole it. I don't care." He shoved the palm pilot in my hands and scampered out after the jocks. The whistle shrieked again, "Gordon!" 

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Really short chapter, I know, and half of what I wanted to write didn't show up in this chapter because of the "academic fair" leaving me without time to do it. I was just dying to post something. Anyway, I'll get around to what I really want by the next chapter. 


End file.
